Deal or no deal?

COVID-19 PANDEMIC HAS ESTABLISHED TO BE CRIPPLING TO ECONOMIES ALL AROUND THE WORLD. SHIPPING LOGISTICS DURING THIS CRISIS IS OF HIGHEST IMPORTANCE.

Even with this global pandemic, I’ve heard that ship crews, like doctors, nurses and everyone exposed to the possibility of the virus in enclosed spaces. With determination, sea transportation has not failed to provide for the needs of people in countries like Guyana, Barbados, Jamaica and St Lucia, to name a few. Due to the courageous efforts of the ship crews all around the world, people are handling this major crisis with far less damage to their standard of living. 

We can only imagine that life at sea is challenging for everyone working on board a vessel. Harsh working conditions could be prominent and so maintaining the right level of service and keeping the morale high onboard is expensive. Luckily for anyone wanting to make shipping to countries like Guyana or Jamaica need not worry about the cost as the onboard crews are well compensated and have unions to protect them.

The question we always face with is what deals can we offer for shipping shipments. Lowering container freight cost is possible; however, we should all be mindful of refraining from going so low to impact the quality of life for marine crew. Sometimes a deal can be a bad deal. 

It is safe to say that COVID-19 is known for its contagiousness more than anything and social distancing is a crucial factor in keeping the pandemic in check – something not easy to maintain in such close quarters. It’s astonishing to but true that maritime transportation makes up for 82% of the world trade, terminating service is not possible as it was in the realm of air transportation. With this much at stake, the shipping industry surely needs serious precautions to ensure to can keep the world well-provisioned. After all, the world economy is in a delicate balance for some time now, which needs us all to be engaged and focused.